THE BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING

Thursday, August 22, 2013

HOW BOB HAWKE KILLED LAND RIGHTS

by Gary Foley Tracker Magazine January 2013

Bob Hawke shows how much land Aborigines gained under his administration

A major theme in all the talks, lectures and raves that I do these days
relates to what I believe to have been the greatest sell-out of
Aboriginal peoples in my lifetime. I speak of the period between 1983
and 1996 when the Hawke-Keating Labor Government killed off the
movement for land rights. In one of the greatest acts of political
bastardry in Australian history, Bob Hawke in 1984 personally removed
land rights from the national political agenda. More galling was the
fact that Hawke had done this at the behest of the most corrupt
politician in recent Australian history. I refer to Mr. Brian Burke,
Former ALP National President and Premier of WA, and best friend of the
Western Australian mining and pastoral industries. Burke was also close
mates with a host of dodgy Perth 1980s property developers, but more of
that later.
The Hawke sell-out is an important aspect of Australian history that
continues to be almost completely ignored in the rush these days by
Australian politicians and media to find ways to blame Aboriginal people
for their own dispossession and marginalisation, rather than conceding
that Aboriginal problems are directly attributable to 200 years of
political neglect and inertia. It is therefore timely in this current
context to re-examine the Hawke-Keating era so that we might better
understand how white-inspired notions such as 'native-title' and
'reconciliation' suddenly in 1984 replaced Aboriginal demands for 'land
rights' and 'economic independence' as the goals of the Labor
government. We might also benefit from a greater appreciation of just
how thoroughly we got 'done over' by the Hawke-Keating Government. It
is only when we understand how Hawke killed land rights and Keating gave
us the completely watered-down and hopeless Native Title Act that we
can better understand how recent history evolved into the current
situation. So let us take a journey of reflection through the
Hawke-Keating era and refresh our memories.
At the time the 'dodgy bodgie' Bob Hawke became Prime Minster in March
1983, the Aboriginal Land Rights Movement was the most united and
politically effective it had ever been. The new Prime Minister would
have been strongly aware of the political gains the movement had made
since its heyday of the 1972 Aboriginal Embassy. Since then a variety of
Aboriginal political organisations across Australia had maintained the
political pressure about land rights on the Whitlam and then Fraser
Governments. Even the Federal government's own elected Aboriginal
Advisory Body, the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC), had proved more
politically unwieldy than the Fraser Government had expected, and the
Aboriginal Movement was gaining increasing attention and support from
overseas groups and UN Agencies.
Bob Hawke would have been acutely aware that just months before he was
elected Aboriginal activists had successfully disrupted the 1982
Commonwealth Games in Brisbane by drawing international media attention
to their cause. Thus in the early days of his Prime Ministership he
wanted to make sure he was clearly seen to be on the side of the
Aboriginal people. Having been head of the ACTU during the Whitlam
Government, Hawke had seen how Whitlam's failure to implement promised
land rights legislation had led to the re-erection of the Aboriginal
Embassy and a disastrous deterioration of relations between the Whitlam
Government and Aboriginal peoples. Hawke was aware that Whitlam's
failure to implement national land rights legislation had been because
of strong resistance from recalcitrant and racist State Governments in
QLD, Tasmania and Western Australia.
Hawke appeared determined not to make the same mistake as Whitlam and
declared in his first days as Prime Minister that he would 'deliver
national, uniform, land rights legislation', and that if any State
government tried to resist, then the Hawke Government would 'over-ride'
State legislation with Commonwealth legislation under constitutional
powers deriving from the 1967 Referendum. This was strong stuff and
Aboriginal political activists were initially impressed. But it didn't
take long before Hawke began to make mistakes. His first big mistake was
to appoint an old, clapped out ALP has-been hack from Victoria as
Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.
Clyde Holding was an unfortunate choice for Minister because of a
variety of reasons. He had just spent ten years as Leader of the
Opposition in Victoria during which he lost three consecutive State
elections and was thus considered an inept 'has-been' and 'never-was'.
But in the ALP such non-entities are not pensioned off, but rather they
are given a safe spot on the ALP Senate ticket and duly elected to
Federal Parliament. As a former ALP State Leader and 'numbers man',
Holding was a close political ally of Hawke and therefore in the style
of the ALP Holding was 'owed'. Hawke was obliged to offer Holding a
Minister's position, but because Holding had such a poor political track
record in Victoria, Hawke was not going to offer him a senior Cabinet
position but rather Holding would get the job that no-one else in the
ALP wanted; the job as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.
At the time Holding was perceived in the mainstream media as
'pro-Aboriginal land rights', which was an image of himself that Holding
liked to project. But his abrupt and arrogant nature would soon
alienate many Aboriginal leaders as they got to know him better.
However, the first twelve months of the Hawke Government were a
honeymoon period in terms of Aboriginal rights issues. The signs were
good. It is important to remember the precise details of the Hawke
Government's promises so that you know how close the Aboriginal land
rights Movement came to achieving its main goal.
Minister Holding in 1983 had stated that the Government's five land rights principles were:
1) Inalienable freehold title for Aboriginal land;
2) Full legal protection of sacred sites;
3) Aboriginal control over mining on Aboriginal land;
4) Access to mining royalty equivalents;
5) Compensation for lost land.
This is a remarkable set of principles and they reveal just how puny and pathetic the later Native Title Act would prove to be.
Nevertheless, on the 1st March 1984 Holding presented to Cabinet
Submission No. 619 which was titled 'Aboriginal land rights - National
legislation' and which sought Cabinet approval of 'action to give
effect to...see that land rights and the protection of cultural sites
and objects are achieved for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island
people.' Cabinet gave its 'approval in principle' for the drafting of
the legislation.
All was looking good up to this point. Then the backlash began.
First out of the starting gate were the vested interests of the mining
industry led by the boss of Western Mining Corporation, Hugh Morgan, who
flamboyantly described land rights as 'anti-Christian and a return to
paganism'. In Western Australia the mining industry and the pastoral
industry, strongly supported by WA Labor Premier Brian Burke mounted a
major scare campaign against land rights. Premier Burke would become the
key player in the subsequent demolition of land rights, so we should
reflect for a moment and recall just what sort of character Mr. Burke
was at that time.
In 1984 Brian Burke was not only Premier of WA but he was also the
National President of the Australian Labor Party, a position he had been
elevated to because of his remarkable ability as a fund-raiser for the
coffers of the ALP. It would later transpire that his fund-raising
abilities were largely due to his close and corrupt relationships with a
variety of dodgy Perth property developers including Laurie Connell and
Alan Bond. Controversy clouded Burke's term as Premier, but when he
resigned in 1988 his federal Labor colleagues had no problem appointing
him as Australian Ambassador to Ireland and the Vatican.
But it all began to unravel for Burke when the WA Inc royal commission
was established in 1991, which led to Burke being charged with various
offences for which he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. He
served seven months in jail in 1994 for travel expense rorts before
being released on parole. In March 1997 he was sentenced to three years'
jail for stealing $122,585 in campaign donations. He served six months
before the convictions were quashed on appeal. He was later stripped of
his honour as a Companion of the Order of Australia. Thus it could be
said that Burke proved to be one of the most corrupt Australian
politicians of the 1980s.
After the Hawke government had announced its five land rights
principles and the furious campaigning by the mining and pastoral
lobbies began in earnest, Premier Burke began to put the squeeze on
Prime Minister Hawke. Acting in effect as a surreptitious agent for rich
and powerful mining and pastoral interests, Burke asserted to Hawke
that the ALP stood to lose numerous seats in WA over the issue.
Meanwhile, Aboriginal groups nationally called on the Hawke Government
to initiate a public awareness campaign about land rights to dispel the
prejudices and misconceptions being exploited by the anti-land rights
lobby, but the call went unheeded.
Then in February 1985 The Hawke Government announces a new, revamped
Preferred National land rights Model. The model is a 'set of principles'
to which the Commonwealth believes all territory, state and
Commonwealth legislation should conform. Four of the five 'principles'
that the Government outlined in March 1983 have been dumped. The new
model:
(a) Required no Aboriginal consent for mining on Aboriginal land,
(b) Prevented land claims over stock routes, stock reserves and Aboriginal-owned pastoral leases, and
(c) Restricted eligibility for excisions.
The National Federation of Land Councils and the National Aboriginal
Conference were outraged and walked out of the next land rights Working
Party meeting in protest. Despite the watered-down Hawke proposals, the
mining industry anti-land rights campaign then shifted into top gear
with a multi-million dollar advertising propaganda campaign that any
reasonable person might regard as racist. All the while Brian Burke was
feverishly lobbying his ALP mates in Canberra against any form of land
rights Act.
Then, in March 1986 Prime Minister Hawke flew to Perth for a secret
meeting with Brian Burke. Immediately after this furtive meeting the
Federal Government abandoned its own national land rights legislation.
In the face of a public scare campaign by the mining industry and the
withdrawal of support by the Western Australian Labor Party, the Hawke
Government retreated from its own commitments, feebly claiming that most
states have made 'advances' towards land rights.
This moment represented the end of land rights.
Paul Coe summed it up at the time when he said, “What happened to land
rights was that the mining industry was too powerful, the pastoral
industry was too powerful and the Commonwealth Government didn't have
the will to stand up to those vested interest group. They decided that
the interests of Aboriginal people could be sold down the drain”.
Perhaps equally exasperating in the whole mess was the fact that one of
the key players in this political game subsequently was later proven to
be one of the most corrupt politicians of the modern era. Nevertheless,
Hawke and Burke's machinations resulted in the removal of land rights as
an item on the national political agenda. Aboriginal political
activists continued to campaign through the 1980s, culminating in a
rally and march through Sydney on the day of the 1988 Bicentennial. This
rally was the biggest assembly of Aboriginal people from all over
Australia in history. Despite widespread Aboriginal anger at the Hawke
government sell-out, the march and rally were peaceful and dignified,
much to the relief of the Hawke government.
The politicians were praying for a more acceptable solution to the
quandary of Aboriginal land rights; one that would satisfy a significant
racist element within the Australian community, and one which would
give virtually no concessions to Aboriginal people. A solution that
could appease the guilty conscience of white Australians at effectively
no real cost to the Government.
Happily for Australia's politicians, just such a solution would emerge
when a deeply-flawed High Court decision in a case called Mabo, would
give the Government the perfect opportunity to create and impose a fake
form of land rights called the Native Title Act. But that is another
story.
Gary Foley January 2013
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